


crash collide into space

by ohmygodwhy



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Relationship Study, kind of a vent fic?? idk man, let them rest, they are in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 03:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10631328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmygodwhy/pseuds/ohmygodwhy
Summary: Shiro’s gone and all he has left of him are a shitty couch and a few pictures on his phone and dog tags that he’s afraid to touch because touching them feels like accepting the fact that Shiro will never touch them again. If he holds them for long enough any traces of Shiro’s touch will be wiped away and replaced, like they were never there to begin with, like Shiro was never there to begin with.





	

**Author's Note:**

> the doc title for this one is 'shiro rlly likes to disappear' which i think sums it up p well lmao

 

 

They tell him Pilot Error and Mission Failure and A Great Loss To Us All. They broadcast it on every news station, all over the damn world—Takashi Shirogane failed this mission, and now there are three people who will never come home to their families—like it’s true, like it could ever be true. 

It’s not true. Keith knows that much. And if it is true, there’s something else to it. 

He’s seen Shiro fly—hell, _everyone’s_ seen Shiro fly, everyone knows he was born to it, made for it. He’s the best pilot the Garrison had to offer, maybe the best anyone had to offer. He wouldn’t make that kind of mistake. 

Keith knows that. He just doesn’t understand why no one else knows it. 

He gets kicked out of the Garrison because he wouldn’t take this bullshit sitting down, because he confronted Iverson and got a twisted arm and more lies for his trouble, because when he grieves, he grieves the way he does everything: deeply, and with everything he has.

He packs his bags and stuffs his knife in his pocket and marches out of the Garrison with his head held high—he wonders what they’ll tell the rest of the students, and realizes he really doesn’t care. He worked so hard to get into the Garrison, but doesn’t feel a thing—unless you count anger, disgust—as he walks out of it. 

It’s horrible and ugly and cliche to say that there’s no point in staying now that Shiro’s gone, but maybe that’s how it is. They were supposed to go to the stars together—they _promised_ —and as much as Keith dreams of flying, he doesn’t want to be up there alone. He’d thought he wouldn’t have to be so goddamn _alone_ anymore.

He doesn’t realize _how_ alone he is until he sits down on the shitty couch he and Shiro had dragged out to the shack in the desert. Shiro had sat here with him before. Shiro will never sit here with him again. 

Keith doesn’t want to think about how empty it is with just him, how much he’d gotten used to having someone around—he’d been alone most of his life but he had finally been learning how to not be alone, how building your life and plans around someone worked, how having people there for you worked, and it’s all been ripped away so quickly it’s left him reeling.

_It’s nothing,_ he tells himself as he throws a leg over his bike, _he can readjust, he can readapt, it’s nothing unfamiliar, it’s how it used to be._

He drives, revs the motor and keeps his head low and _speeds,_ as fast as he fucking can, like if he can just go fast enough he can leave this horrible feeling in his chest behind. Flying, riding, has always relaxed him, always been something that makes him feel whole and in control, but this time it just makes his heart beat faster, makes his hands hurt and his eyes burn with the sand that flies as he passes. 

He makes it about forty minutes out before he has to stop, hands aching where they’re grasping the handlebar, heart beating in his throat. The bike might be out of gas soon, but he doesn’t care. 

Shiro is gone and he is aching and alone and has nowhere to go. He’s alone now and he’s so— _angry_ about it. He’s so angry, because Shiro was supposed to come back and make it into the history books, have a million interviews and speeches and he was supposed to go back up with Keith as his co-pilot or something—and it sounds so _childish_ , now, so imaginary and unrealistic. 

There are dog tags in his pocket. Shiro’s dog tags—Keith had said _what? I don’t want these, it’s bad luck,_ even though he believed in no such thing, and Shiro had just laughed and said _just until I get back, keep them safe for me._

Shiro isn’t coming back, so Keith parks his bike, yanks them out of his pocket, metal clinking against metal, and throws. They glint in the light of the setting sun as they fly, and land with another, far away clink. Shiro isn’t coming back, so he doesn’t have to keep them safe anymore, doesn’t want them anymore—what’s the point of keeping them if Shiro won’t ever need them again? 

Keith isn’t a sentimental person; he’s never owned many things, only the ones most important to him. Why would want to keep these? They aren’t even his. 

He stands there, taking big, heaving breaths, for one, two, three moments, before cussing and stomping in the direction he threw them. 

He stares down at them, lying on the sand and staring back up at him, Shiro’s name glaring like a challenge, like a reminder, like a reprimand, like they know he’s not Shiro. 

He takes another angry, stuttering breath, and sits down hard. He doesn’t touch them, because it feels like he can’t, but he curls into himself and puts his head in his hands and—he cries, just fucking unravels like someone had pulled the string that tied him together and let him fall. 

Because Shiro is gone and it _hurts,_ it hurts more than anything’s hurt in a long long time, he hasn’t hurt like this since he realized his dad wasn’t coming back. And he’d been so young then, he hadn’t realized how much it meant.

He’s not that young now. He knows how much it means. 

Shiro’s gone and all he has left of him are a shitty couch and a few pictures on his phone and dog tags that he’s afraid to touch because touching them feels like accepting the fact that Shiro will never touch them again. If he holds them for long enough any traces of Shiro’s touch will be wiped away and replaced, like they were never there to begin with, like _Shiro_ was never there to begin with.

Keith knows he was, his body is tattooed with Shiro’s touch, he knows his voice as well as he knows his own—maybe even better, because it’s the voice he hears whenever he’s flying tough simulations, telling him to be patient and wait for it and nice nice there you go, telling him to keep these safe for me, just ‘till I get back, telling him he’ll be back. 

He won’t be back, and sitting out here, sun setting in the middle of the goddamn desert, it’s hard to imagine he was ever here at all. 

 

He finds him. It takes a year, but he finds Shiro. Or does Shiro find him?—crashing back down to Earth less than a mile from their shitty little shack. 

Either way, they fall back into each other. 

Keith has been sleeping during the day and exploring at night for the better part of a year now, living in the peace and quiet, and he wants to be mad, wants to be angry at Shiro for leaving him out there like that—was mad, for a while—but he can’t be. Shiro was taken, Shiro was _hurt,_ Shiro was ripped apart and put back together again and still has it in him to smile and lead and Keith can’t ever be mad at him for that. 

When Shiro asks him how it feels to finally be among the stars, Keith says “It’s amazing,” and “It’s beautiful out here,” because it is, but he also says “The stars haven’t been very kind to you, though,” because they’re honest with each other, and “I thought you’d never come back.”

Shiro gives him this sad, hopeful little smile, and says “I’ll always come back,” like the huge sap that he is. They’re honest with each other, and so Keith believes him.

 

He believes him, and maybe that was a mistake, some kind of beautiful fantasy they had in a war-torn galaxy, because Shiro leaves again—they don’t know _how_ and they don’t know _why,_ but he’s gone again. 

Keith had just barely gotten him back. It feels like he’s always trying to hold onto whatever parts of Shiro he can reach, but he can never quite get a solid grip. 

And it’s not _fair,_ is the thing—Keith isn’t a child, he knows how unfair everything is, from your first breaths to your very last, but. Shiro deserves more than that; he’s the kind of person galaxies orbit, the kind of person _Keith_ orbits, and Keith has tried to stay out of other’s orbits his whole life. 

It’s not fair, and Keith grieves _deeply,_ and with _everything_ he has, and he’s still in the process of even realizing that he’s grieving when they get Shiro back again.

It’s hazy, the details of everything—an alternate plane of existence, Allura tells them in that clean cut way of hers. It’s not hard to believe; Keith had been theorizing about alternate realities since he could understand television. What’s hard to believe is that they actually found him again, and so soon. 

He wants to check; he wants to see if they really did find him, if they found _Shiro_ , but. 

Keith is silent. They’re reuniting, the rest of them, hugging and crying and laughing, but. Keith can’t make himself take those few steps forward, can’t make himself move. 

He’s just. He’s so _angry_ —he doesn’t know what or who he’s angry at, but he feels like if he moves even an inch something inside of him will snap. 

He’s angry, and he’s frighteningly calm at the same time. He’s _relieved_ , he’s so relieved he could cry, but that long-known part of him tells him not to; he used to be an angry crier, back when he thought the world cared enough about tears and couldn’t control his body, but he’s learned not to—blinking tears out of his eyes just made him angrier, made him look weaker, never got him taken seriously. 

So he’s relieved and he’s happy and he’s angry and he’s calm. Shiro’s always made him feel so much, so much that it was overwhelming sometimes, but he’s never felt anything quite like this before.

(That’s a lie, kicking Iverson’s chair and staring down at the person he thought had died in space. And here he is again, the person who died in space, except, again, he’s not dead, had never been dead. And still, Keith is angry.)

(He can’t keep doing this. How many times will he have to do this?)

“Keith?” he hears, and looks up. Shiro is looking at him, all soft and confused and worried, like he has any right to be any of those things.

“You promised.” Keith hears himself say before he can think about it. He feels Shiro wince more than he sees it, feels it like Shiro is a part of him he can’t get rid of. 

“Keith—“

“You _promised_ ,” more forceful, this time. Objectively, logically, he knows that it’s not Shiro’s fault. Shiro wouldn’t have left on purpose. He didn’t mean to. Like he didn’t mean to before. Why is it that the person who promised never to leave, leaves the most? His father left only once, and that was enough. 

“Keith, I didn’t—“

“You _‘didn’t mean to’_ ,” he interrupts, because he can’t hear this again, “I know that. But you still _did it.”_

“I’m—“ Shiro starts, but Keith shakes his head hard. He feels like he’s unraveling again, unwinding, like he’s been bound up so tight for so long and it’s all falling out.

“I can’t keep doing this,” he says, and there are tears building anyways, no matter how much he tries to shove them back down. 

“You won’t have to,” Shiro says, suddenly much closer than he was a few moments ago, taking those few steps where Keith can’t—it’s what they do, the two of them; Shiro couldn’t lead, so Keith did it for him; Keith can’t take those steps, so Shiro will. There are gloved hands coming to cup the sides of his head, but Keith jerks away, “You won’t have to keep doing it.”

“You don’t know that,” Keith says, all his anger suddenly rushing forward, every moment he’s spent wondering if Shiro was still alive, in the desert and then here, among the stars they both loved so badly. 

Shiro looks fucking heartbroken, even though _he’s_ the one who keeps leaving. Keith’s done a lot of things, he’s walked away from a lot of people, but he’s never walked away from Shiro. He’s never been able to. Even now, he doesn’t know if he would be able to turn around and walk away from Shiro and that stupid fucking heartbroken look on his face. 

“I’m not planning on leaving anytime soon,” Shiro says anyways, softly, bringing his hands back up to hover around Keith’s head; not quite cradling, but something close, if Keith will let him. 

Keith lets him, because he can’t not, not when Shiro is back and here with his hands cupping Keith’s head, big thumbs grazing his jaw like he’s making sure Keith is really there.

“You weren’t planning on leaving before,” he points out, maybe harsher than he should, right now. But they’ve always been honest with each other. And the honest truth is that Keith is angry, and he’s scared, and he’s angry that he’s scared because he shouldn’t have to be; they’ve both been through enough already, and if there is some kind of god out there, Keith thinks he owes them both a break. 

He shouldn’t have to be afraid of losing Shiro again, but he is. And he’s so so angry about it. 

“I wasn’t,” Shiro agrees, because they’ve always been honest with each other and the honest truth is that Shiro never wanted to leave, but he left anyways, “And I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be sorry,” Keith says, a hand coming up to grip Shiro’s where it’s cupping his cheek, “just be _here_.” 

Shiro looks at him, and smiles, very softly, very small. “I’m here,” he says, and Keith is closing his eyes and folding into him, big arms wrapping him up and holding the back of his head close against his chest. 

Keith wants to fight it, wants to storm off and not forgive him for leaving him alone for so long, for leaving him devastated and waiting for a dead man to come back over and over, but he’s just. He’s just so tired. 

And Shiro is back. 

That long-known part of him is yelling, but the tear fall anyways. Everyone else was crying, so he gets to cry, too; it’s only fair. And Shiro disappeared twice so Keith doesn’t care if he gets Shiro’s shirt all messy. 

Pidge is the first to join in, rushing over and throwing short arms around them as far as she can reach, which isn’t far, but enough for her to grip both of their shirts and bury her face in Shiro’s side. 

Hunk is next, and then Lance, probably, and then Allura and Coran and they’re all one big fucking mess, huddled up like it’s the only thing that’ll keep all of them together. Maybe it is. 

The point is, Keith says, “It’s good to have you back,” again, into the crook of Shiro’s neck, like it’s a secret, and Shiro goes, “It’s good to be back,” again, and his voice is all watery, so. Maybe they aren’t as lost as they think they are. 

**Author's Note:**

> comments keep me young & healthy


End file.
